Economics
by Forbiddensoul562
Summary: A mysterious attack on the world economy threatens to plunge the whole world into economic collapse, the three successors have no choice but to work together. Will they be able to put a stop to the attacks without killing each other first? M/N/M two-shot.


A/N: This is a challenge story that my beta gave to me. One of the first ones she gave me. The basic idea was to do something where someone was taking the world's money and the three successors need to figure out what's going on before things crash. Well… I took that a bit further, I think. Or rather, I expanded it a bit. See what you think.

Side note: Anyone reading this who's read Erosion, please go to my profile and vote for what sort of ending you'd like! I really need the input before I'll be able to finish it. Thanks!

Title: Economics

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><p>The sound of different news channels from all around the world reverberated off the walls of the large room. Dark eyes lay fixated upon one large screen directly ahead, which displayed numbers of different red lines first moving upward at a steady trend, then suddenly nose-diving towards the ground.<p>

Every few moments the screen updated itself, showing the lines getting closer and closer to the bottom of the screen. Numbers next to the head of each arrow depicted negative numbers from everything.

Business was crashing on a world wide scale and nobody could figure out why.

Near, who had the case file open beside him, looked down from the screen to the papers he had previously scattered about. This was not the sort of case that he was used to, or would ever normally consider taking. But, when he saw the stock market and saw the way everything was crashing, he knew it was imperative that things be solved.

Money flowed into businesses for their product, but it seemed that the moment it was entered into the system, and logged into their accounts to be distributed where it needed to be, suddenly it would all vanish. It was as if it had never been there to begin with -millions of dollars being wiped from companies around the world every minute.

There was a sudden snapping sound from the side, but Near attempted to ignore it, as he continued to read. Not long after, though, he heard one of the many screens he'd been listening to change, abruptly to a completely different station.

He tensed where he was, his grey eyes flicking up and over to the other two members of this 'team'. "Matt, put the channel back where it was. I need to listen to that."

The gamer leaned back in the chair he was sitting in, putting his feet up on the desk and taking out his cigarettes from a side pocket, "Near they've been saying the same thing for four hours." He stated, lighting up and taking a long drag.

Near rolled his eyes, wondering for a moment why he had agreed to work with these two on this case again, "If you insist on giving yourself cancer, Matt, please keep it to yourself and do not share that with the rest of us." Matt seemed to ignore him, though. Just as he had for the last three days…

Mello, who was sitting beside his best friend snapped off another chunk of his chocolate bar, bringing about another small cringe from Near in annoyance at the sound that broke the atmosphere he needed to think. "We've been locked up in this room for three days and we haven't figured a damn thing out yet." He sighed looking back at the screen Matt had yet to change back, "I knew I should have done this on my own…"

Near was not in the mood to start this with Mello, "I am L now, Mello. I would love to see you get half as far as I will on this case on your own." He said confidently. "What resources could you possibly obtain on your own?"

Mello shot him a look, fighting back every urge to jump from the chair and hit his childhood nemesis. "What? Good luck getting anywhere without us! You think _you'd _actually be able to go to go out and actually _talk_ to those people or go _arrest_ them whenever we find them like I do, or be able to get into systems _nearly_ as fast as Matt can?" He shot back.

"I would have had this case done already if I didn't have to slow the process down to keep the two of you clear on what is happening and what _will_ happen as things progress." Near retorted casually.

"Alright that's it!" Mello shot up, clearing the space between them and grabbing Near, pulling him up off the ground.

Unwavering grey eyes locked with enraged blue ones and Mello drew back his fist, ready to hit Near with everything he had when Matt's voice suddenly resounded, "Mello, the more you keep fighting with him, the more each country is losing each minute. That's why we're working together. You guys are supposed to be the 'perfect team' here, who are _better_ than L himself! The quicker you get this solved, the quicker you can be rid of each other again."

"He has a point." Mello told Near as their stares never broke; they were almost intense enough to start a fire in the air between them.

"I agree." Near said firmly, his dark grey, abysmal eyes narrowing ever so slightly, as though to silently tell Mello that _he_ had been saying that all-along, and that it had just proven that it took Mello this long to catch on –completely reinstating the point he had made earlier.

Mello's glare intensified, if at all possible, his grip on the boy grew and for a second he reconsidered ignoring Matt for a moment, and just hitting the youngest genius. "Why does everything you say always _piss_ me off?"

"Because you have an inferiority complex."

There was a long moment of tense silence between the three of them before suddenly there was a loud beeping noise from a screen on the opposite side of the room. Mello huffed once before dropping Near hard to the floor, "you're not worth the time or effort." He said as a side comment, making sure to kick over Near's large tower of cards as he walked back to where he had been before.

Matt was the one to get up and go check the screen holding the update in the case, as Near commented back to the blonde, "I doubt you will be thinking that when your need to compete and attempt to beat me comes back up in your mind, Mello."

"Near. Mello." Matt broke in before Mello could yell at the albino. "A bank in Switzerland has been hit hard. Records are showing they've lost nearly a billion dollars, just like everyone else who's been hit."

There was a long silence where Near did not respond, simply trying to think, _'How could that much money just disappear? No, nothing ever disappears. It's going somewhere, but where? Someone is taking it. However…'_ He turned, looking back at the world stock market screen.

Mello stood, stepping closer to the same screen, looking it over and mentally analyzing it all almost as fast as Near. "Somebody's getting a lot of money…" He commented absentmindedly.

"I do not believe that that is what's happening here, Mello." Near commented, causing the blonde to turn back towards him and give him a look of question –their previous skirmish seemingly completely forgotten already. "If it was one person taking all of this, it would be much more concentrated in its attacks. It'd all be in one area, or even one country. This is very broad. We have seen hits in Switzerland, England, America, and Japan, predominantly, along with major industries of smaller countries. The only major economic power not yet hit is China."

"So then there are _a lot_ of people trying to get money." He retorted, correcting his previous statement.

"That's much too simple." Near said, watching each arrow continue their own individual nose-dive towards the bottom of the screen. His hand came up, beginning to twirl a lock of pale white hair. "An organization, perhaps. That makes sense. Maybe to obtain money, but not for the sake of _having_ it. They would have stopped a long time ago, if that was what they were after."

"Then what else could it be?" Matt asked.

"I am not yet sure…" Near admitted, looking down from the screen and Mello to instead look at his toys –each of his robots all set in formation, and a destroyed tower of cards beside them. He began reconstructing the tower, only this time creating mini towers and placing robots behind each one, as if to protect them against anymore attacks.

Mello watched his rival for a moment before turning to Matt, "Hack into the banks and companies that have been hit the hardest, Matt." He instructed. "Get into their system and see if you can figure out where the hole in the system is. If they're leaking all of this, they have to be leaving some sort of trail as well. We'll follow that."

"I'm on it, boss." Matt said, pulling down his goggles over his eyes and sitting at the screen he'd been looking at and beginning to type away furiously.

"While he looks for that, we need to try and think who could be responsible for this; to at least give us a direction to look." Mello said, turning back to Near –who did not show any signs that he was listening to him. "It's a group of people, we decided, as some of these attacks have been occurring simultaneously." He stepped closer to where Near was, and sat down cross-legged, watching him build each little tower intently.

"Correct. It's safe to assume that they must be working`` together towards one main goal. But what is the goal? What could they do with so much money from all over the world?" He spoke each thought aloud, knowing Mello would rebound with other ideas. While normally he would not share his thoughts with others until he was completely sure on all of them, all competition aside, he knew Mello was good for working ideas off of. They thought in very much the same way, whether the blonde wanted to admit it or not.

"I'm in." Matt commented from the side. "I'm starting with the bank of America that was hit relatively early on. Hopefully there will still be any trace left of the attack before they got better at what they were doing and learned to hide it better."

Mello's eyes flicked over to his friend for a moment, "Who are we supposed to consider to be suspects in this? What country has _not_ been hit by these attacks in some way? All the major countries have all been hit."

Near closed his eyes for a moment, letting his thoughts rush through his mind and trying to make sense of everything that was happening; in the back of his mind there was the looming nudge that told him he was performing too slowly. He needed to be quicker or lest he figure it out too late and countries begin to fall as a result of the economic loss. That pressure was _not_ helping anything.

But he had to remain focused, and composed. It was what he was good at in situations like these.

Just then his eyes suddenly snapped open, looking past Mello to the stock scene, as pieces of the puzzle began to click into place. "I see…" He commented. "I understand what's going on here." His eyes flicked to Matt, "Do not worry about looking for a country. Just follow the leaks. Find out where they all go. It _is_ going somewhere."

Grey eyes moved back to Mello, "We're not looking at this the correct way, Mello." He told him, earning a confused look from the blonde. Near looked to all of the little towers with their own robot, using it as his demonstration, "We're looking at it as one country attacking all of the others; seeing them as their own individual beings, not individual citizens _within_ those countries, and in any other circumstance we would be correct in seeing them that way. But that is not what's happening here."

He picked up a lone robot and positioned it across from the others that were lined up, pitting them against each other in opposition. "You overlooked the fact that China has not been hit, Mello." His eyes flicked up to him momentarily. "What is happening here is an individual group attacking the rest of the world." With that, Near began flicking all the towers over, leaving only one –the tower meant to represent China.

"Anarchy?" Mello asked, to which Near nodded.

"I do not think we would be wrong in assuming this is an act from an organized group, from whatever country, attempting to take down each country one by one by targeting their economy, first." Near elaborated.

"Take down everyone's economy and eventually things will fall into chaos. People won't know what to do anymore…" He stated, taking another chocolate bar from his pocket, quickly unwrapping it and snapping off a piece. "They've hit everyone, leaving only China –the heavy-power country that as ties with everyone. Picking who they want and don't want. Take them out… take out everyone else."

"They're leaving them for last."

Both sets of eyes met, silently going back and forth with each other over what should be done with this amount of information. They understood what was going on, they just needed to know who was doing it and find them and destroy the group before they had the chance to affect the Chinese market.

"I've got the leak." Matt cut in. "But… you're not going to like this."

Mello sighed heavily, visibly deflating at the sheer magnitude of what exactly they were dealing with. Through all three of their minds ran the wonder of how exactly they were going to track the terrorist group down and destroy it. And who knew how much time they had before China was finally attacked and things began to fall with lack of money to do any trading, buying, selling, or anything to keep markets open and working. "What is it, Matt?" Mello finally asked.

"Well… I figured out that things were being leaked out of a back door in each system, created by the hackers. However, the money they're taken has no real end point." He explained.

"Matt that doesn't make any fucking sense!" Mello shouted, frustrated.

"No, what I'm saying is… when I follow the lead back, I'm pulling up hundreds of coordinates for it to be output, but… they're all places in deserts and tundra and… none of these coordinates are linked to any computer, or base, or… well… anybody. They're going nowhere."

_To be continued…_

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><p>AN: Yeah, I've had this written for about two weeks and finally my beta beat the shit out of me until I decided to put it up. I personally don't think it turned out nearly as good as I saw it in my mind, but she saw something in it that obviously I'm not seeing. I'm going to try to write the second part of this soon, hopefully, but right now I'm lacking ideas further than what's here. We'll see. Please let me know what you think.

Please review  
><em>-Forbiddensoul562<em>


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